SALT AND ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL USES. 563 



animals of tne farm that are very fond of it the dog and the cat that 

 do not care for it at all. 



These exceptions have been for a long time considered as inexpli- 

 cable. It could not be understood how the need for salt could, in cer- 

 tain cases, be as imperative as true physiological needs, such as hunger 

 and thirst, while in others it seemed entirely foreign to the organism. 

 A learned physiologist, M. Bunge, of Basel, has thrown some light 

 upon this obscure question. After an extensive investigation, ethno- 

 graphic, historic, and geographic, he has drawn the primary conclusion 

 that the use of salt is connected with the kind of diet. Salt is a neces- 

 sary complement to a vegetarian regimen. Among animals it is the 

 herbivora that seek it with avidity. Carnivora are indifferent to it or 

 even regard it with disgust. Among men the appetite for this season- 

 ing exists especially in those whose food consists of leguminous vege- 

 tables and cereals; that is to say, among agricultural populations or 

 at least among those who live on a mixed diet. On the contrary, those 

 who do not care for it are the pastoral tribes that live upon milk and 

 meat that they derive from their flocks and herds, hunting tribes that 

 subsist upon the products of the chase, and fishing populations who, 

 although they dwell by the sea or at the mouths of rivers, where they 

 can get plenty of salt, yet do not use it. Now, if this is really the case, 

 we may at least consider that the correlation between these two phe- 

 nomena, the development of agriculture and sedentary life on the one 

 hand and the use of salt with the food on the other, is worthy of 

 investigation. 



All the nomadic tribes of the north of Russia and Siberia abstain 

 from salting their food. They can readily obtain salt; for deposits, 

 efflorescences, and salt lakes abound in those regions; still these peo- 

 ples, who live by the chase and by fishing, have a decided aversion for 

 this condiment. An explorer who lived a long time with the Kamcha- 

 dales and Tunguses, the well-known mineralogist, C. von Ditmar, 

 amused himself by inducing them to taste the salted food which he 

 himself used and by noting the expressions and grimaces of dislike 

 which this simple seasoning caused. This was not, however, because 

 these people had an excessive delicacy of taste. They habitually fed 

 upon an unnamable mixture made of fish massed in enormous silos 

 where they putrefied at leisure awaiting the time when they should be 

 eaten. The Russian Government desired to change these too disgust- 

 ing and unhealthy food habits. It taught these peoples the art of salt- 

 ing fish so as to preserve them from putrefaction, establishing for this 

 purpose curing stations near their encampments and furnishing them 

 with salt at nominal price. Vain efforts ! These docile peoples obeyed. 

 They salted the fish, but they ate them not. 



Similar examples of indifference or antipathy to this apparently 

 necessary seasoning arc found in other latitudes. The Kirghizes of 



